Our Youth Today:A Generation Lost in Moral Relativism

ADULTS,TAKE ITTO HEART!Today’s youth are sometimes called the “Lost Generation.” They are lost in the most acute sense when it comes to spiritual and moral foundations.Youth today are lost because of society’s general departure from God and His Word, His ways, His truth and righteousness and justice and mercy. While our youth have inherited from their parents’ generation this falling away from God and truth, thedecline into the dark hole of godless thinking and godless living is increasing While only 25% of those born between 1984-2002 (currently between ages 13-31) believe that moral truth is absolute, only 9% of these base their moral choices on the Bible (Barna research study, August 9, 2005, www.barna.org). How many of these are professing Christians?Young people today are confused. They are confused about whom God is and what it means to know and follow Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, who died and rose again from the dead in order to save them from their sins. They are equally confused about what sin really is. The very notion of right from wrong has been blurred. To even acknowledge that right from wrong do exist in reality is, these days, out of date and out of style. Moral relativism tells them that truth, sin, right and wrong are nothing more than opinions. A person who believes in right and wrong as objective realities is considered judgmental and bigoted, and held in contempt by the modern preference for the theory of amorality (the lie that moral absolutes do not exist), which, of course, results in the practice of immorality. Moral relativism mocks God’s standards and makes sin – missing God’s mark - acceptable.This is openrebellion against the Lord. Itis our country’s and our society’s ultimate undoing. It is the most pressing issue of our times, and it demands our utmost corrective efforts. To do less is to give our permission to the forces of darkness to continue leading our youth astray. We cannot hand over our children so carelessly!OUR APATHY IS THEIR HOPELESSNESS.“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).

The crumbling foundations must be restored! We can start by understanding the problem of moral and spiritual relativism. Then we must supply the biblical remedy, and press that remedy in holybattle until it is once again penetrating and permeating our young people. Only God can move hearts, and until He does we have spiritual work to do! “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).Parents, grandparents, church and community leaders: It is our job to answer this call and to help clean up this mess. The time for you and me to personally stand in the gap has come. The noise of the culture is loud, and it is filling the ears and minds of our young people with lies. The culture that grips them is temptation-saturated but truth-empty. That’s the problem. We as God’s people have the solution. We are “the salt of the earth”, “the light of the world”, “the pillar and support of the truth” in this world (Matthew 5:13-14; 1 Timothy 3:15). How can you apply the Lord’s salt, light and truth in your sphere of influence?The gap between God and our young people is wide but not impermeable, dark but not out of reach. Fill the void. Stand for truth. Stand against evil. Press through the ignorance and apathy that exists either in your heart or in theirs. Do not move from your place between God, before whom you stand, and our young, for whom you stand, until their hearts are won and your job is done.